Caitlin Tough knew there was something wrong. But she had to battle for more than a decade to get the endometriosis diagnosis she needed.
Ms Tough says that experience - of pain, repeated medical appointments and hospital visits, missing school, and being told to get used to it and stop complaining - means she will always champion women's health.
"I don't want anyone to ever go through what I went through as a teenager. It's not fun," the newest minister in the ACT government says.
"And so I kind of took that as, well, what can I do to make it better for the women who come after me?
"And I think stepping into the Minister for Women [portfolio] is another way of making sure that, you know, what I went through, other women don't have to go through, other teenage girls don't have to go through.
"But broadening that out to not just women's health, but, you know, women's experiences more broadly and making it actually a better place to live for women."
Ms Tough says work to guarantee women's safety needs attitudes to shift but that is now being met with some backlash.
"We can't stop. We have to keep talking and keep talking. And it's not just women who need to be talking," she says.
"The whole of the community needs to be talking. And I think federally, we've talked about Dan Repacholi as the special envoy for men's health. I think it's also helping in a way to have those conversations to say that medical misogyny affects everyone in different ways.
"It's just women have been particularly impacted in how they're able to engage with the medical community."
Ms Tough's elevation to cabinet followed a corruption finding against a former top staffer in Yvette Berry's office that prompted the long-serving deputy chief minister to resign from cabinet. No findings were made against Ms Berry.
It was not the circumstances Ms Tough, 33, would have liked to be promoted in.
"I've succeeded because one of my colleagues has had to step down. But, you know, I think all of us are agreed that, OK, that was a terrible event, but this is the path forward and we all agree on the new Deputy Chief Minister and we've all agreed on the new cabinet minister," she says.
"So we're a united team working together."
Ms Tough, who was elected in 2024, was unanimously supported by Labor caucus to enter cabinet, and is now responsible for human rights, community services, corrections, women, seniors and veterans, and the prevention of domestic, family and sexual violence.
"It's reassuring to be part of a government that takes responsibility seriously. So I know, you know, that falls to me now," she says.
Ms Tough first arrived in Canberra, aged 18, to study at the Australian National University, having grown up in Toukley on NSW's Central Coast.
"I met a man who is now my husband and he was living in Tuggeranong. And it just seemed like the natural place to then move in with him when my lease expires, as you do," she says.
"And we thought, well, let's, you know, we're serious, let's buy a house together. Let's start thinking about starting a family. And where do we live?
"We've got all of Canberra to pick from. And we both went to Tuggeranong. Tuggeranong feels like home."
Now with a home in Lanyon, Ms Tough says Tuggeranong reminds her of the Central Coast, on the periphery of the big smoke, with its own identity and community.
"So you've got all the conveniences of being in the city, but you're still slightly separated from it. And it's got its own community and everyone does look out for each other. And everyone, you know, in Tuggeranong looks out for Tuggeranong," she says.
"So it just felt like the place to live."
Ms Tough says she's proud of planning system changes that will allow "missing middle"-style housing to be built in Canberra's suburbs because it will mean more choice for people who want to stay in their part of town.
"I know so many friends, you know, that I've come to know in Canberra who did grow up in Tuggeranong, who found themselves in different parts of the city because there wasn't the housing for them when they wanted to leave. And many have now come back to Tuggeranong," she says.
Since leaving the public service and being elected as a member for Brindabella to the Legislative Assembly in October 2024, Ms Tough has become the primary breadwinner in her family. Ms Tough has a son with her husband, Matt.
Ms Tough says part of the attitude shift that still needs to happen in families was about who plays what role.
And that might change at different times, she says.
"My husband does primary caring. And we've been able to make that work. But it was that shift in attitude and the attitudes of the people around us too and accepting that, you know, my husband is actually the person that does the school pickup and the person that goes to most of the appointments, while I'm the one doing the full-time work," Ms Tough says.
"Before I got elected, I was the one doing part-time work, doing the caring. As a family, we've made that work. But making that available, making that a norm for families to go, it doesn't matter which one of us works and which one of us does primary caring.
"People should be able to make that choice as a family and not have society make it harder for them to do so."
Ms Tough was nowhere near the ACT and eight years old when ACT Labor came to power in 2001.
But whenever you are in government, you need to show why you are in government, she says.
"I think we do, as a government, self-renew and have new people come in and have new ideas come in," Ms Tough says.
"Personally, I'm not going to just take everything and go, yeah, cool, this is what we said we're doing and what we plan to do, so we'll just keep doing it. I'm going to look at everything.
"And I think the ministers with different portfolios are thinking the same things. When you take on a new portfolio, you're not just going to say everything's the same.
"You want to make your own mark on it."
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